Rattling The Bars

California is experiencing a public health disaster by keeping people incarcerated in overcrowded, unsanitary, and violent conditions. TRN Executive Producer Eddie Conway speaks with Amber-Rose Howard, Executive Director of Californians United for a Responsible Budget, about how her organization is fighting for prison closures, divestment, and mass releases. Help us continue producing radically in...

In this urgent, unscheduled episode of “Rattling the Bars,” Eddie Conway talks to Pam Africa, legendary Philadelphia activist and head of the International Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal, about the health of longtime prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was diagnosed with COVID-19 last week, and about the grassroots push to get him released. Phone numbers mentioned during this episode: P...

Since 2002, Greek revolutionary and activist Dimitris Koufontinas has been in prison for his role in the Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17N). Labelled a “terrorist” by the Greek government, Koufontinas began a hunger strike on Jan. 8, 2021, and has been refusing water since Feb. 22, in protest of his draconian treatment in prison. With his health rapidly deteriorating, time is running out...

Until recently, the horrifyingly unjust reality of America’s mass incarceration system has not been a central concern in popular political discourse. In the past few years, however, more people have learned about the brutality and inhumanity of mass incarceration as artists, activists, documentarians, and elected officials have called attention to the broken U.S. criminal justice system—and its di...

Flint Taylor and Jeff Haas, co-founders of the People’s Law Office in Chicago, were the lead lawyers in the landmark case that exposed the FBI’s involvement in the assassination of Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. While that case was settled nearly 40 years ago, newly revealed documents show that the conspiracy to murder Hampton and cover up evidence of government involvement goes deepe...

Public health experts and advocates continue to shine a light on the horrifying statistics of COVID-19 infections within the prison-industrial complex. Those same experts, moreover, have shown that outbreaks in prisons and jails spread quickly and violently to communities outside prison walls. And yet, this humanitarian and public health crisis is still largely going unaddressed. In this week's ep...

Eddie Conway, former Lieutenant of Security for the Baltimore Black Panther Party, was locked up on dubious charges and held as a political prisoner for over 40 years. Conway is part of a generation of Black radicals and revolutionaries who were imprisoned, killed, or otherwise wiped off the political map in the decades of organized reaction following the radical 60s. But their revolutionary strug...

In 1980, Eddie Conway participated in and helped organize a prisoners’ educational outreach program called “To Say Their Own Words,” where thinkers and scholars came to Maryland Penitentiary and spoke about topics like impending U.S. fascism, the prison-industrial complex, capitalism, increased surveillance, and many other issues that have become even more pressing today. These speakers included A...

At 84 years old, Sundiata Acoli has been in prison for 48 years, and has been denied parole six times. Last December, he was diagnosed with COVID-19. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, Rev. Lukata Mjumbe of the Sundiata Acoli Freedom Campaign joins Eddie Conway to discuss Acoli's life as an organizer, mathematician, artist, and poet; the push by his friends and family, along with faith leaders,...